The White Lady
I cannot rest, I cannot restIn strait and shiny wood,My woven hands upon my breast--The dead are all so good!
The earth is cool across their eyes;They lie there quietly.But I am neither old nor wise,They do not welcome me.
Where never I walked alone beforeI wander in the weeds;And people scream and bar the door,And rattle at their beads.
We cannot rest, we never restWithin a narrow bedWho still must love the living best--Who hate the drowsy dead!
Words in this poem
- shiny a.
- Bright; luminous; clear; unclouded.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The White Lady is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enough Rope: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #68353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, The White Lady, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-white-lady.html, id L27343.
Form and metre
The White Lady is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB restA · woodB · breastA · goodB
- 2 ABAB eyesA · quietlyB · wiseA · meB
- 3 ABAB beforeA · weedsB · doorA · beadsB
- 4 ABAB restA · bedB · bestA · deadB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I cannot rest, I cannot rest | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In strait and shiny wood, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My woven hands upon my breast-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The dead are all so good! | 6 | ······ |
| The earth is cool across their eyes; | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| They lie there quietly. | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| But I am neither old nor wise, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They do not welcome me. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Where never I walked alone before | 8 | ·/··˘/·· |
| I wander in the weeds; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And people scream and bar the door, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And rattle at their beads. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| We cannot rest, we never rest | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Within a narrow bed | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Who still must love the living best-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Who hate the drowsy dead! | 6 | ···/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.